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They’re balking at a Senate plan to go after doctors who owe back taxes and another to make it easier to figure out if someone is overstating the mortgage interest deduction. They also won’t accept an effort to cut the number of people wrongly claiming a child tax credit.

That’s a major change from just a few years ago, when Republicans led a bid to help the IRS clamp down on tax shelters and backed efforts to require foreign banks to help U.S. authorities catch Americans stashing income abroad and make it harder for people to misreport their capital gains.

But that was before an inspector general report in May 2013 blasted the IRS for excessively scrutinizing tea party groups seeking tax breaks. More than 20 congressional hearings later, Republicans are in no mood to give the IRS any more authority.

“There’s not a whole lot of confidence right now about what the Internal Revenue Service does among the American people, let alone members of Congress,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), who sits on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “Why should we give them more tools to harass taxpayers?”

There are also political considerations. Cracking down on tax dodgers would step on House Republicans’ campaign message this election year, said Floyd Williams, the IRS’s former director of legislative affairs.

“If you want a simple message, and a focus on how bad the IRS is, it’s hard to vote to give them more tools,” said Williams.

The dispute not only threatens efforts to collect the approximately $400 billion in taxes that go unpaid every year, it also puts in peril unrelated legislation because lawmakers have long turned to tax-compliance measures to raise money when they were deadlocked on tax increases and spending cuts.

A highway budget bill including several of the provisions is set to die in the Senate this week because of House Republican opposition. Another Senate measure offering tax cuts to startup companies, other small businesses, bike-sharing programs and theatrical productions that lawmakers had also hoped to finance by clamping down on unpaid taxes is also threatened.

The position puts House Republicans at odds with those in the Senate, who have never been as zealous as their House counterparts in pursuing the agency.

“I don’t think Senate Republicans on the [Finance] committee have a big problem with just making sure taxes that are owed are being collected,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who sits on the panel. “It’s just a function of enforcing the law.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) complained House Republicans are walling off what has long been an area of bipartisan cooperation.

“This has been a traditional position supported by both sides of the aisle,” he said. “Certainly, this is a departure that needs to be addressed.”

Before the tea party scandal hit, lawmakers had quietly agreed to raise tens of billions of dollars by improving tax collections. Wary of inconveniencing individual taxpayers, Congress often turned to banks, credit card companies and others to corroborate what people had claimed on their returns. That raised money because it not only made it easier for the IRS to detect errors, but because people are more likely to report accurate information if they know someone else will also be reporting on them.